Gov. McCrory and the N.C. Legislature eliminated the N.C. Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) at the end of 2013. This decision hurts North Carolina’s low-wage workers.

Gov. McCrory and the N.C. Legislature eliminated the N.C. Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) at the end of 2013. This decision hurts North Carolina’s low-wage workers.

As an intern with Children First/CIS, I’ve seen how local families rely on the combination of the state and federal EITC to assist them in paying for basic necessities. One local family of four that uses Children First/CIS’s services has a father working in landscaping. During the slow winter months the family gets behind in paying bills. They have relied on their EITC refund over the last seven years to buy food, pay bills, and to make a payment on their trailer.

The EITC creates an incentive for hard work by giving families additional credit for working more hours. In the years 2009, 2010, and 2011 alone, the federal EITC kept 293,000 North Carolinians, half of whom are children, above the poverty line.

While the dollar value of the state EITC is less than the federal, every dollar makes a difference for low-wage working families. We need to reinstate the state EITC in North Carolina to lift working families out of poverty and sustain their livelihoods.